


the witching hour

by stephbethallen



Series: lights and sirens [3]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medical, Bad Pick-Up Lines, Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Meet-Cute, Superstition, Workplace Relationship, icu nurse akaashi, paramedic bokuto
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:55:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28365768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephbethallen/pseuds/stephbethallen
Summary: (n.): the late-night hour when the veil between life and death, normal and paranormal, and reality and dream is thinnestor, bokuto keeps going upstairs to have coffee with the new ICU nurse. medical superstition ensues.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou, background Kuroken
Series: lights and sirens [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2028268
Comments: 30
Kudos: 132





	the witching hour

**Author's Note:**

> hi y'all i am SO happy i got another piece done for this AU!!! i got a couple requests for bokuaka so i hope you enjoy these little snippets of their early relationship, mixed with how akaashi adjusts to being the nightshift nurse!
> 
> before we start, four things to clarify:
> 
> -a _code_ is basically a euphemism for when someone goes into cardiopulmonary arrest, which would be pretty common occurrences for both EMS and ICU settings
> 
> -PCR stands for _patient care report_ , sometimes referred to as a "run report" in the US. not doing them has serious legal consequences, so shhh, don't tell Chief Ukai. 
> 
> -the _q-word_ (quiet) superstition is longstanding in the healthcare field! the idea is if you say it, it jinxes the rest of a shift to bring trainwreck patients and malfunctioning equipment and general bad luck
> 
> -finally, this story may be slightly unsettling in a way that it includes some improbable medical events, specifically a resuscitation that defies explanation, towards the end. this is a work of fiction. not to say the witching hour isn't real...but i'll leave that up to you. 
> 
> finally, thank you [Lin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lineal/pseuds/Lineal) for beta'ing!!! you are INCREDIBLE. case closed. go check out all their stuff i'm begging you.

Bokuto’s knee would not stop bouncing. He just couldn’t contain it at this point. The EMS lounge was essentially a glorified broom closet and he wanted to  _ move _ . It had been one of those days. 

The wrist Kuroo had slung over his eyes shifts slightly, revealing a single constricted pupil. “Bro. Please. Chill.” 

“I  _ can’t _ , though!” Bokuto shook his best friend’s ankle. “Hey, we going out for drinks after Daichi finishes?” 

The wrist moves entirely now. “Are you kidding? It’s, like…” He glances toward the small green LED clock on the lounge’s microwave. “1:24 AM.” 

“Actually, it’s 2:24,” Daichi growls from behind his PCR laptop. “Fix the microwave, Bokuto. Nobody’s getting drinks.” 

Bokuto, eager now that he had a task assigned to him, ambles over to the microwave. He takes his time fixing the clock to try and stretch out the task, but he’s back on the couch with his knee bouncing in under fourteen seconds. 

A beat of silence. Kuroo had fallen asleep and Daichi’s typing fingers had paused as he zoned out, probably trying to remember what had happened during the case. 

Bokuto can’t stand it any longer. “Captain, what should I do while I wait for you?” 

Daichi is thoroughly unenthused. “Y’know, you and Kuroo wouldn’t  _ have  _ to wait for me if you just did your own PCRs.” 

“Nah,” Kuroo, apparently not asleep, groaned. 

“Yeah, nah,” Bokuto echoes. PCRs were tedious and stupid. He got why they needed to exist—accountability, record-keeping if someone sued, et cetera—but that didn’t mean Boktuo was the right person to do them. Daichi, professional and duty-bound, was  _ born  _ for writing PCRs. Kuroo could do them if he could find the motivation. Bokuto just...nah. 

“What should I do? You never answered my question,” Bokuto readdresses the central issue. 

“Other than your actual job?” Daichi sighs. “I dunno. Watch TV.” 

Bokuto droops and looks towards the TV in question; it’s one of those thick ones strapped to the shelf mounted on the wall from the 80s. “The set’s broken. It hasn’t turned on since I was a little baby medic doing ride-alongs.” 

“Uh...You could start the coffeemaker for me.” 

Bokuto scrunches his face up. He knew the filter needed to be changed from the previous night and he didn’t like touching coffee grounds. 

Daichi actually looks genuinely sympathetic for a second, but then it goes away. “Well, then, I dunno, but you can’t leave. Ukai would have my head if you clocked out without finishing the PCR.” 

“Go flirt with the nurses,” Kuroo suggests, then promptly curls up further on the couch. “Heard there’s some fresh blood in the ICU.” 

Bokuto perks up at this—this is a good challenge. “Ooh!” 

“Get me some coffee while you’re out, alright?” Daichi calls behind him, weak and caffeine-deprived. “‘Some’ meaning, like, two at least.” 

Truly, Bokuto did feel kinda bad for making Daichi do all the work, but...well, there was a reason that Daichi was Captain and that Bokuto and Kuroo were not. And one of those reasons was that Bokuto was going to go flirt with the night shift ICU nurses while he was still on the clock.

“Yes, sir!” He salutes and jogs off into the hallway, moving towards the service elevator. The ICU was three floors up, which gave him plenty of time to decide how he’d approach the nurses.

_ Are you my SA node? Because you’re the reason my heart beats. _

_ Are you a pulmonary embolism? Because you’re making me breathless. _

_ Are you a defibrillator? Because you’re sending shocks straight to my heart. _

The pulmonary embolism one always gets positive responses. He’ll use that one.

* * *

Akaashi is in the throes of the witching hour. There’s no other way to explain what is happening to him right now.

“Hey, are you a pulmonary embolism? Because you’re making me breathless,” the man says to him, a goofy smile across his face. “Bokuto Koutarou, paramedic. And you are?”

Akaashi has to just balk at him for a moment until he regains his composure. “Good one. Akaashi Keiji. I’m the new nurse.” 

“Ah, they got you on the witching hour shift? Yikes,” Bokuto winces sympathetically.

“Well, so are you, it seems,” Akaashi returns. 

“Ah, you’re right, but I’m off soon. My fault.” The man says vaguely, then grins again. “Join me for a witching hour coffee? Or are you busy?” 

“Well, I was doing some charting,” Akaashi explains, gesturing to the clipboard and laptop in front of him. It wasn’t an acceptance or a declination; he wasn’t sure that he should be making any romantic moves, since it was only his second week on this unit. In fact, he definitely shoudn’t be making any romantic moves. If this guy has the gall to flirt with him, then he probably flirts with every other nurse in the unit, and Akaashi doesn’t want to step on anyone’s toes. Or blatantly reveal that he’s gay in a new workplace, either one.

But the man sighs and his goofy grin drops immediately into something between disappointment and complete despair. Even his  _ hair _ seemed to droop as Akaashi brushed him off. 

Akaashi hesitates, then revises, “But, um, it can wait. Sure, let’s get a coffee.” 

Bokuto’s grin immediately returns and he extends a hand over the edge of the nurses’ station. 

“A gentleman,” Akaashi murmurs, seeing the grin grow wider on his face. He liked seeing that his encouragement makes him happy. “Thank you.” 

“So!” Bokuto starts as he practically drags him to the coffee machine, “Where’re you from, Akaashi?” 

“Tokyo. I spent the last two years nursing at St. Luke’s International, did most of my clinicals there, too.” 

“Wow, that’s a real fancy hospital! You gotta be smart! Your English must be great, too!” Bokuto’s eyes shine as he praises him, despite not even knowing him. “What brings you to Sendai, then?” 

Akaashi pauses for a moment while Bokuto starts up the coffee machine. Why  _ did _ he leave? It was a stable job and he had a good reputation. No personnel issues to speak of. 

He was just tired of it, was all. The whole experience was tiring. Tokyo was always on the move, and so was St. Luke’s. Patients were so severely sick all the time. The bright lights and the intensity of everything just became too much after a while.

He needed something  _ different. _

Akaashi rubs the back of his neck and provides, “It was very busy at St. Luke’s. Overwhelmingly so, I think. My old preceptor used to work here, so she put in a good word for me.” 

Bokuto nods. “I understand that. Things can get pretty hectic here, but probably nowhere near like Tokyo. How do you like it? People treating you okay?” 

“Everyone’s been very welcoming.” Akaashi neglects to include the fact that his nurse manager has been giving him absolute trainwreck patients, probably intentionally to haze him, and that he’s already been abandoned in two codes. “I’m very grateful for the position.”

“Well, I’m already glad you’re here! I don’t really ever come up here, since I’m usually only in the ER, but I know most of the nurses on this unit are old and saggy and strict!” He says, much too loud for the circumstances. “Let me know if you ever have trouble, okay? Us EMS guys don’t have that much pull, but we’re tight with the ER Chief, Takeda-sensei, downstairs, so if you’ve ever got a problem, we can help out.” 

Akaashi softens his sore witching hour eyes. He could almost cry; this is the first genuine offer of support that he’s gotten since starting this job, and he’s so, so worn-out. “Thank you, Bokuto-san. That’s very kind.” 

“Ah, don’t worry about it! It’s the least I can do!” Bokuto laughs, loud and full-bellied, uncharacteristic for this hour of the night, and pulls his coffee from underneath the machine when it stops spitting it out. “Cream and sugar?” 

Akaashi nearly has to do a double-take. This is the first person he’s had to really strike up a conversation with him that didn’t include criticism, and he was offering to make him coffee, too? He almost feels a blush creep up his cheek. “Oh, um, just a bit of sugar, please. Thank you.” 

“Absolutely.” Bokuto fills the little foam cup with, well, a lot more sugar than Akaashi usually took, but that was okay. Its warmth tickled Akaashi’s throat, waking him up nicely.

Akaashi finishes a long sip and returns the conversation, asking, “And what about you? How long have you been in Sendai?” 

“Long time!” Bokuto grins up from where he was starting another batch of coffee. “I grew up in Tokyo, actually, but I moved down here when my parents got divorced. I finished high school here with a couple of the guys in EMS, and we all decided to go to paramedic school. Been here since.” 

“I admire your work, Bokuto-san. Paramedicine is a very noble profession.” Akaashi wanted to offer some sort of sympathy for the divorce comment, but Bokuto clearly didn’t pay it much mind. It must have happened a while ago, so he leaves it alone. “So, you and the rest of the rescue squad must be close?” 

“ _ So _ close!” Bokuto grins even  _ wider _ . “We got a little family going! You gotta have it when you’re in jobs like these, y’know?” He gestures to his (wrinkled) uniform, then to Akaashi’s scrubs. “We see too much. Gotta have a family for support.” 

“I understand,” Akaashi says, only superficially understanding.

Maybe part of why he left St. Luke’s was because he had no family to speak of at work. No one reached out, and Akaashi didn’t make any big effort to build one of his own. He didn’t have someone like Bokuto to invite him in.

“Well!” Bokuto sighs, picking up three styrofoam cups filled to the brim—two with black coffee, one with an amount of creamer that made Akaashi’s gut curdle. “I gotta head back down to the lounge, my Captain’s waiting for these. I didn’t mean to keep you from your work so long.” 

“Oh, no, not at all.” Maybe Bokuto noticed how the mood changed when they started talking about family and that’s why he’s suddenly leaving. “It was nice meeting you, Bokuto-san. I hope we cross paths again soon.” 

Bokuto flashes the grin again, this time over his shoulder. “Don’t worry about that. You can’t get rid of me now, Akaashi!” 

Bokuto ambles towards the elevator, spilling a bit of coffee in his wake and cursing, but he turns around as the elevator doors close and waves.

Normally, Akaashi wouldn’t be thrilled to hear someone say  _ You can’t get rid of me! _

But for some reason, Akaashi wishes he could have spent the rest of the witching hour with Bokuto. 

* * *

“Bro! You will  _ never _ guess what just happened to me!” Bokuto bursts the door to the lounge open. “Hottest guy  _ ever _ lets me make him coffee! Then he says I’m in a ‘noble profession!’ Then he says he wants us to ‘cross paths’ again!” 

Daichi smiles tiredly and accepts the coffee Bokuto offers him. “That’s great,” he says, rather blandly, but Bokuto can tell there’s some enthusiasm hidden under his sleep deprivation. 

“Yeah! More than great!” Bokuto bounces down on the couch next to Kuroo. “Hear that, Kuroo? What can I say, I’m just a pro at pickin’ up the guys and the gals!” 

Kuroo groans from his napping spot as Bokuto jostles him awake, but he smirks. “You get his number?” 

Oh, fuck. He forgot. He  _ forgot _ to get his number. “...Kuroo, you want me to make you a coffee, too? I’m going back upstairs.” 

* * *

Witching hour after witching hour after witching hour, Bokuto would come in to grab a coffee for “Daichi-san,” as Akaashi came to know, and witching hour after witching hour after witching hour, Akaashi would look forward to talking with him. They would first tell each other about their days—a debrief, of sorts, which sometimes they desperately needed after hard calls or hard patients—and then they’d swap stories. Bokuto always had the most colorful tales to tell, and Akaashi almost wondered if they were real or not, but it didn’t quite matter, since Bokuto grinned through everything. That is, if he wasn’t in a slump, but Akaashi could pull him out of those relatively well.

Akaashi had never considered himself humorous, really, but Bokuto was quick to laugh at any quip he made. 

Akaashi had never considered himself brilliant, really, but Bokuto was quick to compliment him on how neat or detailed his notes were or how fast he could do dosage calculation. 

Akaashi had never considered himself beautiful, really, but Bokuto was quick to remind him of it. A flirtatious remark here and there. An errant but lingering glance towards Akaashi’s tight-fitting scrub pants. And, sometimes, a hand through his black curls. Eventually, a kiss on his cheek. And, after the eventually, well, copped feels in the locker room. Nights at their apartments. So on and so on. Nothing formal, everything genuine. 

Akaashi had never considered himself lonely, really, but whenever Bokuto was more than the five feet of distance there was between him, the coffee machine, and Akaashi, he felt like something was missing. Something vital. Something that he  _ required  _ to function. 

The rest of the ICU staff warmed up to him once he proved how good of a nurse he actually was, and that he wasn’t some pretentious city kid. But that relationship only went so far; nothing past locker room chitchatting or maybe the sporadic shared lunch was ever accomplished.

He found more of a family with the EMS crew, strangely enough, through moments in their small lounge on the ground floor. Poker games and hospital coffee and PCRs and Akaashi’s own charts to do. Sawamura, strong-jawed, with his steady encouragement and back-claps. Kuroo, sly and long-fingered, with his wicked sense of humor. Iwaizumi, chiseled and buff, with his sound advice. The younger medics—Kageyama, Hinata, Yachi—green and growing, with minds struggling in the precarious balance of idealism and cynicism one develops in the medical field. Even Chief Ukai, rugged and gruff, with his unwavering support and trust in his subordinates and subsequent fondness for Akaashi. 

But there was always Bokuto. He didn’t seem particularly central to the squad, like Sawamura did, but he glowed in every room he stepped into. Akaashi could never ever take his eyes off him when they were in the vicinity of each other. Even when Akaashi was trying to have a conversation with the other guys, he’d just end up talking about Bokuto or looking at him from across the lounge. 

People noticed. Akaashi, for once in his life, didn’t pay it much mind, because he wasn’t afraid to be noticed with Bokuto.

He wasn’t afraid to be close with someone so loving, so honest, and so raw. Even his bad parts.

* * *

Today’s a slump day—Akaashi can already tell by the curve of Bokuto’s shoulders as he comes out of the elevator towards the nursing station. 

“Good evening, Bokuto-san,” he greets, per his standard. It was actually the morning—ten minutes to 0700, when Akaashi would clock out—but it felt weird to not say  _ evening _ . The witching hour was over according to the clock, but it lingered even in the early morning sun.

Bokuto looks up at him with puffy, bloodshot eyes, and murmurs, per usual, a medical pickup line: “Are you my SA node? Because you’re the reason my heart beats.”

“Thank you,” Akaashi responds to his lackluster joke. “What’s on your mind?” 

Bokuto nearly crumples into the desk chair next to Akaashi’s. “Bad day.” 

“I gathered as much. Tell me.” 

He reaches out a soft hand to Bokuto’s knee when he stays quiet. The weave of his trousers was thin around the joint. 

“Had somebody code today,” he finally says. 

Akaashi can only shake his head grimly. He sees codes all the time, since the ICU is full of dying people, but Bokuto obviously wouldn’t, and they’re distressing no matter what. “I’m so sorry.” 

“It’s o—” 

“No, it isn’t.” 

The paramedic swallows. “Yeah.” 

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

“Sorta.” 

“Then let’s.” Akaashi gets up, quietly, carefully, as if to not disturb Bokuto’s fragile mood, and leads him by the hand to the coffee machine. He starts it up, already prepping the creamer Bokuto would want.

“He was, uh. Trauma case. It was just me and Hinata, so I was the only one who could do ALS and stuff.” He pauses while the coffeemaker rumbles. “Dispatch only said there was a pedestrian hit by a bike and didn’t say whether that meant motorcycle or bicycle.” 

The coffeemaker’s whines come to a fever pitch. Akaashi keeps quiet to let Bokuto continue uninterrupted. 

“Dispatch also didn’t say he had already broken his neck. Wasn’t any time to call for backup, we hit the ground runnin’ until he quit on us. I...Hinata  _ had _ to drive if he had any chance of surviving, so I was just alone in the back. I had to intubate at the scene, the AED wasn’t really working, and I had to give CPR for like...I dunno, maybe thirteen minutes. Broke at least five of his ribs doin’ it until there wasn’t any more electrical activity in his heart and he was suddenly bagged and tagged.” 

The coffeemaker spits out some brown sludge. It seems to be grieving. 

Before Akaashi pours the creamer, he takes a second to squeeze Bokuto’s alcohol-dry hand. “That sounds like a horrible position to be in, Bokuto-san. I’m sorry you had to do that all yourself, and I’m sorry Dispatch didn’t give you enough information, and I’m sorry it turned out the way it did.” 

“It’s not like it’s your fault,” he grumbles. “He died on  _ my  _ watch, y’know.” 

“There wasn’t anything you could do more. You were working against the clock on someone who was already gone.” 

Akaashi finally pours the creamer. It gurgles as it hits the coffee.

“My shoulders hurt. My wrists hurt,” Bokuto whispers, like it’s a crime to admit that CPR was so taxing. It was  _ incredibly  _ taxing to manually pump someone’s blood, even with someone as muscular as Bokuto. “But it doesn’t hurt as much as being dead.” 

Akaashi passes him the hot coffee. He holds it up to his face for a moment, letting steam hit his features, until he sips it. 

“Thank you,” he says, finally smiling softly. “Daichi-san’s at the station and Hinata did the PCR already, no need to make another.” 

“Alright.” Akaashi shifts his weight slightly. “Are you going back to the station?” 

He exhales sharply. “No, I had the witching hour shift. I’ll go in tonight.” 

“Are you going home?” 

“Maybe? Kuroo’s on his day off and he’ll have Kenma over and I don’t want to be a downer on that and he’s a good roommate and he’d understand of course but I need to sleep quietly though so I might just get a hotel room—”

“Don’t do that,” Akaashi stops him. “Come to my place. We can sleep for as long as you want.” 

Bokuto’s brow climbs for a quick instant, but then he looks down. His fingers twitch. 

“Only if you’re comfortable with that, of course. But I don’t want you to be alone today.”  _ Code for: I will absolutely spoil the shit out of you like you deserve if you come over. Blankets and hot tea and sitcoms that only you enjoy and skin-to-skin contact like you deserve. Comfort that will make me feel better, too. _

The coffee cup ended up abandoned on the table when Bokuto immediately squeezed Akaashi’s hand back and they left together. He didn’t need it anyway, not if he and Akaashi were going to bed anyway.

* * *

In the witching hour, it’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s fake. Who’s alive and who’s dead. Love or just affection. Dream or reality. Everything blurs into a mass of color and light and bleeps of monitors indicating fragile mortality. But Bokuto, though his emotions flickered like a broken lightbulb, seemed constant,  _ real, _ and tangible. 

* * *

It had been one of those evenings where someone mentioned “quiet”—Bokuto, actually. He approached Akaashi with a stethoscope, promptly placing it in Akaashi’s ears, and holding it against his chest. 

“I think I’ve got a heart murmur, Akaashi. Do you hear that? Because if you’re quiet enough, you can hear it say, ‘You’re sexy!’” 

Now, Akaashi isn’t really a superstitious person, but he knows better than to ever say the  _ q-word _ . Especially on the ICU unit. But they had both laughed at the horrible murmur line and started in on their daily coffee. 

“...and I was like, ‘Naw, man, there’s no way I can eat thirty maraschino cherries  _ and _ vodka,’ but then Kuroo was all like, ‘Yeah, you really  _ can’t _ ,’ and that pissed me off, y’know? So, I, uh, proved him wrong.” Bokuto animates over his coffee. 

Akaashi has to laugh behind his hand. “How did that work out for you?” 

Bokuto rubs his neck sheepishly. “I, uh, well—” 

And then it happens. Someone had said the q-word, and now Akaashi hears a flatline coming from room 303. 

_ A code.  _ It was no longer quiet then. Bokuto looks at him with large, large eyes. 

“I have to—Bokuto-san, just stay here, I have to go,” Akaashi murmurs in his ear as he sprints off towards the room with the coding patient. 

_ No one is here. Why is no one here yet? _

The patient’s lips are already blue with cyanosis. Akaashi leaps into action, starting CPR and pressing the code button when he breaks to give breaths. The charge nurse had gone on a break, and the others...where are the others? Something dumb about donuts downstairs was happening about an hour ago, but that doesn’t explain…Someone should be in here with a crash cart by now!

_ The witching hour _ , some part of Akaashi realizes.  _ Anything can happen _ . 

Akaashi’s hands are starting to hurt as the poor patient’s brittle, geriatric ribs crack underneath his palms. Sweat drips down his brow, splattering on the patient’s gown.  _ Where is the crash cart?  _ Akaashi can’t keep this up for much longer. 

He can’t keep this up much longer. It hurts, physically and psychologically. He’s getting weaker with each compression and he can barely take a breath in to give it to the man on the bed. 

“ _ Bokuto-san! _ ” Akaashi eventually yells with the remaining air in his lungs. “Someone! I need to be relieved!” 

Thumping feet roll down the hallway like thunder. “I’ve got you, Keiji! Bag him!” 

Akaashi stumbles away from the patient, holds down the code button one more time for good measure, and starts rummaging around for a bag-valve mask to use to give him breaths. Fitting the mask on took only a second and a half from Akaashi’s practiced touches, and then the patient was receiving oxygen at a steady rate. 

“...thirteen and fourteen and fifteen and sixteen and seventeen and…” Bokuto keeps pace for himself by speaking out the compressions. He’s steady and strong, each compression going down the perfect amount on the patient’s chest, and though Bokuto’s frown indicated discomfort and desperation, he was much more well-equipped to do this than Akaashi right now. 

Rounds of compressions pass by; how many, Akaashi wasn’t quite sure, but Bokuto was starting to tire. But, just when Akaashi is preparing to take over for him, like a sudden surge of electricity, Bokuto thunders on with his compressions with more intensity. 

_ The witching hour.  _

“...twenty-three, twenty-four—” 

The monitor suddenly bleeps to life, with no particular reason. It’s not like Akaashi or Bokuto even shocked him, but the monitor indicated sinus rhythm. The patient coughs underneath the bag-valve mask and Akaashi removes it immediately, tending to him as Bokuto backs away. 

“Where  _ were  _ you guys!? We’ve been coding this guy for at least seven minutes and no one showed up!” Akaashi hears Bokuto say, but it sounds far, far away. “Y-You can’t just  _ leave _ a single person to run an ICU, much less code someone!” 

“No one got a code call, and no one in Telemetry saw anything…” Akaashi recognizes his charge nurse’s voice. 

Akaashi finally backs away from the patient to see the crash team finally arrive. The patient showed no sign of ever coding—his lips were a soft pink and the pallor of his skin was normal—but Akaashi and Bokuto were both dripping with sweat. 

_ The witching hour. Something happened, but no one saw. Nothing happened, but  _ **_something happened._ ** __

The attending reads off the EKG strip, “It’s...sinus, and then nothing for about eight minutes, and then sinus.” 

“Doctor, what—” 

“I’ve never seen something like this—” 

Bokuto scowls at their discussion—a face Akaashi had never seen on him before. “C’mon, Keiji. Let’s get cleaned up,” he growls, leading Akaashi out by the shoulder towards the locker room. 

Akaashi vaguely notices the charge nurse apologizing, something about incorrect communication in the chain of command. Somebody thanks Bokuto for jumping in and helping. But mostly, Akaashi focuses on Bokuto’s voice in his ear. 

“You’re okay, Keiji. You saved him. Let’s get you showered and see if you can come home early with me, okay? Keep that head up, babe. That’s right, keep moving, you’ve got it…” 

The rest of the night was a blur. He and Bokuto must have showered together, because there was no way Akaashi could stand by himself. It was like...like Akaashi’s entire life force had gone into that patient, leaving him a husk, a shell of existence. Somehow he ended up in Bokuto and Kuroo’s shared apartment.

He remembers Kuroo forcing a glass of water down his throat and blankets over his shoulders. Akaashi complied numbly. Before he drifted off into the relative peace of sleep, he could hear Bokuto murmuring with Kuroo. 

“Strangest fucking thing, y’know? Guy wakes up like nothing happened and Akaashi looks like  _ he’s _ the one who coded.” 

Kuroo’s low chuckling sounds. “Witching hour, huh?”

“Got that right.” 

Akaashi wakes up in the morning feeling completely fine. Bokuto makes a pot of coffee for him.

Like nothing ever happened. 

* * *

After that night, which marked about four months into his new job in Sendai City Hospital’s ICU, Akaashi stopped getting witching hour shifts. He wasn’t sure if this was a coincidence or not. The nurse manager said he had adjusted into the environment and was deemed too steady and too sharp to work only nights, but still, the timing was weird. Day shift it was, and just like that, he was “promoted.”

This was a natural progression and one that both Akaashi and Bokuto understood would happen as Akaashi gained superiority. Bokuto’s shifts were erratic, though, so there was no promise of coffee on any given day.

The coffee machine didn’t see Akaashi and Bokuto together much after Akaashi got his informal promotion to the day shift. Sometimes, Akaashi will look at it and wonder if it misses Bokuto’s laugh.

* * *

But that wasn’t to say that Akaashi stopped hearing Bokuto’s laugh, because he moved out of his apartment with Kuroo around the same time Akaashi got promoted. Akaashi would wake up in the morning to find Bokuto deeply asleep next to him, blankets wrapped around them, and a pot of fresh coffee wafting into their bedroom. 

There was always a note next to the pot. The daily pickup line.

_ Are you a defibrillator? Because you’re sending shocks straight to my heart.  _

_ Love you, Keiji. Wake me up before you go, alright? Missed you last night. Witching hour was crazy.  _

**Author's Note:**

> AY YO WORKPLACE FAMILY CHECK
> 
> but seriously. i love them so very much.
> 
> thank you so much for reading my friend!! what did you think? did you like it, and if you did, what would you like to see next? suggestions/corrections/clarifications?


End file.
